Parkinson’s Law means that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Imagine you have two weeks to complete a project. How likely would you deliver the task earlier than the deadline? If your answer is not likely, you’re not alone. Because even if the project with a two-week deadline could be finished in three…
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Concorde Fallacy: How to Avoid Making Decisions Like A Losing Gambler
The Concorde fallacy is a mental bias where people continue spending resources (money, time, or effort) on failing projects because of a prior commitment. Let’s see the story of Concorde and how a fallacy was named after it. Concorde was an impressive aircraft. It had an elegant design, with a maximum speed over twice the…
What Is Argumentum Ad Populum (And How To Question It)
Argumentum ad populum (Latin for “appeal to the people”) is a fallacy when people accept what is popular as true without logical reasoning. We live in a world of arguments. Some arguments shape how we make decisions and how we live without us realizing it. Especially when the majority accepts one as the norm. A…
Via Negativa: Steve Jobs’ Favorite Mental Model For Problem-Solving
Via negativa is a mental model that looks for solutions not through addition, but through subtraction. Steve Jobs loved cutting things out. When he returned to Apple as CEO, before creating any new product, he killed dozens of existing products. And focused the company on what it does best. Later on, he made one of the…
The Lindy Effect: How Things Age In Reverse (With Examples)
What is the Lindy Effect? According to the Lindy Effect, the older an idea, a technology or a company gets, the longer it will live in the future. It’s aging in reverse. And it’s a useful mental model to understand the world better. Imagine you are in a library. You see hundreds of books one next to…
What is Antifragility (With A Career Example)
What’s the definition of Antifragility? We know fragile things. They break easily with a little stress and disorder. Antifragile things don’t just resist a shock, damage, or crisis but also thrive under these conditions. It’s a concept developed by Nassim Taleb in his book Antifragile. Let’s look at two examples to see how you can use it in your life: Fragile: Little…
Second-Order Thinking: How To Make Better Decisions In Life
Second-order thinking is a useful mental model to make better decisions in life. First, a story from China will show you why it’s crucial to use second-order thinking for major decisions. Then, you’ll find practical tips on how to apply second-order thinking. Every decision has consequences When Mao Zedong declared war on sparrows with Four Pest Campaign in China,…
